Thanks to the recent London Jazz Festival, my customary diet of classical concerts has been pleasingly enriched by a few other gigs, one of which – by the Tyshawn Sorey Trio at King’s Place last Friday – was quite simply superb, and probably my best non-classical concert of the year so far. Sorey is probably not as well known as he should be, despite his many awards and acclamations, but you can get some idea of what the particularly wonderful gig I attended was like by listening to the two albums the Trio has made so far. They are terrific. More of them later.
I first came across Sorey – drummer and composer (and educator) extraordinaire – seven or eight years ago, partly thanks to a recommendation from my friend Richard Williams (who made Sorey artist-in-residence when he was artistic director of the Berlin Jazz Festival), partly because I’d become interested in the music of Vijay Iyer; my own first experience of Sorey performing live was when he and bassist Stephan Crump accompanied Iyer in July 2017, while the pianist was artist-in-residence at London’s Wigmore Hall. That evening, as usual, Iyer was dependably fine (as it happens I saw him in a solo set only last week, the night before Sorey’s Trio concert), but it was actually Sorey’s distinctive approach to percussion – at once utterly precise but spontaneous, flexible but razor-sharp, essentially percussive, even explosive, but uncommonly musical – that really caught my attention. His approach and subtlety made me think of Paul Motian (one of my all-time favourite drummers); I knew I wanted to see him again.
And so I did, at the QEH concert given by Iyer, Sorey and Linda May Han Oh a couple of years ago. (You can find my photo taken during those strange times at the bottom of this blog.) I also made it my business to check out Sorey’s other work: restlessly adventurous and inventive, he has been involved in a staggering range of releases, mostly avant-garde or experimental. But then there is his work with the trio I saw Friday, which is largely about playing standards from the American songbook. That said, even by today’s jazz conventions, the Trio’s performances differ considerably from your average covers-recital. As the Guardian’s John Fordham wrote recently in his review of the album Continuing, ‘…standard-song jazz interpretations by Sorey’s trio don’t sound like anybody else’s.’
Indeed they don’t. For one thing, Sorey’s notion of what belongs in the canon is perhaps a little more extensive than usual; we were treated at the concert not only to Joseph Kosma’s Autumn Leaves (a wonderfully spacious opener) and Duke Ellington’s REM Blues, but to Wayne Shorter’s Reincarnation Blues, Ahmad Jamal’s Seleritus and, for an encore, What Direction Are You Headed? by the leader’s late mentor, the post-bop pianist Harold Mabern, which was surely as funky as anyone could wish for. But what really matters is the playing, and on that score too, Friday’s concert could hardly have been bettered. Pianist Aaron Diehl and bassist Matt Brewer clearly have the technique, imagination, audacity, spirit and sheer stamina for Sorey’s conception of this music. The high level of attentive interplay was conspicuous throughout; each number was given a lengthy workout, allowing for dramatic shifts in dynamics, tempo, tone and colour, while even the most sudden, unexpected transitions were tight and flawless. Still more impressive was how, here and there, the three seemed almost to be pulling a piece’s rhythmic core apart, the musicians each steadily moving off into a slightly different tempo till it all felt on the brink of collapse, then bringing it brilliantly back on course in an instant, as if by magical sleight of hand.
Frequently, when this happened, Brewer’s bass appeared to be holding things together: Diehl would latch on to a percussive phrase and play it over and over, changing the timing with each punchy repeat, while Sorey – seldom a drummer to play things straight – would pursue his own imaginative path on a surprisingly small set which clearly holds no constraints for his constantly inventive approach to beat, pulse and texture. Sorey, Diehl and Brewer, all individually excellent, listen to one another so closely that they sometimes sound like a single multi-coloured instrument. It’s crucial, in this regard, that Sorey – as mentioned above, one of the most comprehensively musical drummers around (with him it’s never just about beat) – is an unusually reticent leader; he doesn’t push himself forward, evidently regarding himself primarily as an integral part of a larger unit.
The music I heard at King’s Place led me to belatedly check out the Trio’s two albums, both released by Pi Recordings in June of this year: Mesmerising and Continuing, the former having six tracks, the latter four, their greater length reflecting the slightly more expansive approach I heard at the concert. No matter: both are marvellous (and the first can currently be accessed on YouTube, though if you try it and like it, you should of course buy it!).
By the way, the reason this blog comes a little late is because I wanted to post it after I’d seen The Necks perform at King’s Place; I thought I’d perhaps want to write about that gig, too. Well, it was of course excellent in many ways, though I also found some of it a little disappointingly inert in terms of harmonic and rhythmic ideas. (I should add, judging by the audience’s enthusiastic response, that I was probably in a small minority in feeling any such disappointment.) Still, I never really felt amazed or transported by the Necks’ two sets, and I certainly never once found myself sitting there with a massive smile on my face, as I had at the Tyshawn Sorey Trio gig. You might like to check out the latter’s music for yourself.
All photos by the author. Mesmerising and Continuing are released by Pi Recordings.
notes and observations by Geoff Andrew 